A Demon's Dreaming
by BlackIceWitch
Summary: Summary: By Steam & Iron 'verse. AU. Steampunk. In a world where techology has been regressed to Industrial Revolution standards, a man's wife is murdered by a demon. John Winchester takes his young sons from everything he's ever known on a dangerous journey to find the answers he desperately needs. No slash, no spoilers. Comments appreciated.
1. Chapter 1

_**August, 1945, Mt Fuji, Japan**_

* * *

><p>The expanding ring of cloud rose above the land with surprising speed, growing larger as it ascended into the atmosphere. There had been little outcry, most of those who'd perished had been wiped out before they were aware of the danger.<p>

"So now they have the power of God," Raphael leaned against the two-handed hilt of his sword, staring down at the flattened buildings and vegetation. "And we're supposed to guide these apes?"

Gabriel didn't answer, his eyes half-closed as he reached out through the waves of energy, solid and liquid and gaseous. He could feel their Father's attention, the stirrings of anger that were reflected in a shift in the tectonic plates beneath their feet.

"They have gone too far, I tell you," Raphael said as the mountain trembled.

They both felt it at once, a subtle but definite change in the planet, something removed, from beneath the ground and the seas and oceans, from the seams in the rock and bones of the continents and under the golden sands of the deserts.

Gabriel nodded slightly. "As predicted, my brother, He has removed fire from their world."

Raphael looked at the cold volcanic cone they stood on, his mouth opening to argue.

Catching the incipient protest, Gabriel smiled. "The oil. The source of the energy they burn and waste and cannot replace," he said, gesturing widely around them. "It's all gone and they will be busy thinking of something to use instead, possibly for the next few centuries."

Raphael scowled. "That's it?! That's all?"

"It will be enough, I think," the Angel of Death slid his sword back into the sheath at his hip. "After the last fifty years, they might think better of a period of peace."

"They are as ants, and they will come up with something equally destructive, left to their own devices!" Raphael said scathingly.

His brother looked at him, the black feathers of his wings shivering in the wind that soughed over them.

"You want to wipe them out, Rafe?"

"I want to have what we were promised, brother," Raphael said with a sigh.

"What Lucifer promised, you mean?" Gabriel asked shrewdly. "That was a dream, Raphael."

The pale silver eyes of the archangel turned to him. "It didn't have to be."

In the open air of the mountain, the rustling beat of wings could hardly be heard. Gabriel stared thoughtfully at the churned snow where his brother had stood, then lifted his head abruptly. It was not something he sensed that rang a clarion of alarms in him. It was something he could no longer sense.

He could no longer feel his Father.

* * *

><p><em><strong>1972, Sioux Falls, South Dakota<strong>_

The angel touched the rocky outcropping with the staff and the stone split, releasing a cloud of noxious fumes, a sickly pale red light spilling out from the widening crack, creeping over the ground, the grasses and weeds shrivelling and burning as it touched them.

The smoke that slithered through the gap was darker, almost black, a thickening spiral that hesitated in front of the angel and slowly solidified, becoming bipedal, humanoid, and finally taking on the form of a man, features only roughly sketched in but the glowing yellow eyes distinct and flickering with a malicious amusement.

"It's been a long time," the demon said to the angel, head turning curiously from side to side as it surveyed the small clearing.

"It has, Azazel," the archangel replied, the staff gripped tightly in one hand. "Mankind has reached equilibrium again."

The demon grinned, mouth stretching wide. "Yeah, doesn't matter what you throw at them, they seem to get back to square one sooner or later."

"He has gone."

"I thought that might've been the case," Azazel said, the smile vanishing and the yellow eyes considering. "Haven't heard of a genuine miracle for a long time."

"There is only one way we will ever see Paradise now."

"You want to release the devil?" the demon asked, the innocent tone of his voice belied by the slight lift of one side of his mouth. He shook his head. "The Seals, we don't know how to break them. Lucifer said that it's in the bloodlines, and he can't see foresee the union it would take."

"We're working on that," the angel said repressively. "Can you speak to him, freely?"

Azazel shook his head. "No, I dream sometimes. That's all."

"There is a spell. It is exact and it will open the bars of the cage enough to hear him whisper through them."

"And what is he supposed to tell me?"

The archangel let out a pained exhale. "He's been down there for three thousand years, Azazel. I'm sure he's been able to come up with something to get himself free."

Azazel looked narrowly at the angel. "While you keep your hands clean and lily-white?"

"There is no percentage to revealing our plan before it is prudent to do so."

"What's the spell?"

"A sacrifice of innocence and piety."

"In this world?" Azazel asked. "Come on."

"You'll work it out, Azazel," the archangel said dryly. "That has always been your gift."

"What about the next step?"

"That will depend a little on what the Morning Star can come up with, but the keys to the first and the last Seals will be within our grasp. I will contact you in six months time. You must be ready to act."

"I'll be ready," the demon promised, licking his lips hungrily. He'd already thought of the ideal sacrificial location.

"Good."

"Wait a minute," Azazel said, his hand snapping out and closing around the arm of the angel. "How many up there are on our side?"

The angel looked down at the hand coldly. "Enough," he said. "Enough to bring us to the Apocalypse, and then it will be too late."

Azazel's fingers closed on air as the blackened grass crumbled and blew away with the downdraft of the wings. He didn't trust them, not one inch. But he was out, and he had a few plans of his own. Dissolving back into the formless smoke, he rose out of the tight valley and rode the winds through the darkening sky to the east, looking for what he needed.

* * *

><p><em><strong>December 30, 1983<strong>_

The garage was a big building but it could barely contain the amount of things it held, scavenged and cobbled together, re-designed and re-worked to suit the world as it had become.

John Winchester eased himself out from under the vehicle. He was a big man, not overly tall but broad across the shoulders and deep through the chest, heavily muscled from a lifetime of physical labouring. Dark hair flopped over a high forehead as he sat up on the low-wheeled creeper and dark green eyes stared morosely at the second vehicle in front of him, squeezed in beside the one he was working on. Both needed refitting to take the steam engines that Mike had modified and he'd refined. Steam wasn't powerful enough to get the vehicles moving at anything like the speeds he dreamed of, but these were solid farm vehicles, they only needed to get the produce from the field to the town and any speed would do for that.

Wiping the soot from his face with an already-filthy handkerchief, he glanced back at the connections from the boiler to the turbine. The gaskets were the best they'd been able to make, hardened rubber from the infrequent shipments that came up from the deep South, cut with the Winchester-modified hydraulic press. It was powerful enough to cut iron, and it did a good job on the rubber, the gearing could be extended a little more to make it more powerful still. The rubber would deteriorate though. Perhaps he should be setting himself up in business as a gasket manufacturer, he thought sourly, instead of doing all the modifications to the vehicles from start to finish.

On the walls of shelving, parts and gears and sheets of metal and bolts and nuts and screws and springs spilled from wooden crates and barrels, from heavy cane baskets and sewn leather bags. Most of them gleamed in the dull, low-wattage light that flickered steadily, matched by the throb of the steam-engine at the back of the building. They'd been salvaged, cleaned and ground out and coated in vegetable oil to keep them at their best until they could be used. Nothing was thrown away, everything was difficult to find and difficult to make and waste of any kind was a societal sin.

Getting to his feet, he tapped the creeper back under the vehicle with the heel of his boot and walked around the engine bay to the driver's door. The engine was fed with coal, and it could carry enough to run for a little under twelve hours. They'd fooled around with all sorts of solid mass fuels over the last few years, but coal was the most reliable, still the easiest to get hold of, and lasted the longest. It just burned dirty, leaving a residue of soot over everything. He set the flue and checked that the gears were disengaged then walked back to the engine and closed the coal door, waiting for the embers to catch again and the heat to move to the boiler. After a few minutes, it did and the high stovepipe released a burst of steam that instantly mantled the garage in moisture.

Well, it was running, he thought with some satisfaction. Clarence would be happy about that, if not the bill when Mike handed it over. Closing the flue and opening the coal door, he let the engine throb itself to a halt and walked toward the wide, double-doors. He could get started on the second one in the morning.

"How'd she run?" Mike met him at the doors, drawn by the brief low roar of the engine. "Gasket holding?"

"Tight as a drum," John agreed with a shrug. "We lose a lot of the power through making it too small."

"Those were the specs," Mike said resignedly. "Old coot can't drive worth a damn and he's got to be able to get the damned thing into the market without demolishing half the other stalls."

"Just sayin'," John pointed out pacifically.

"I know."

Mike looked at the younger man's face as they turned off the lights and closed the doors together. John had been through the ringer in the last two months, there was no doubt of that. He didn't know what to do for the man other than keep him busy. But being busy wasn't enough.

"Kate's got supper ready, comin' up to the house?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder as he locked the massive iron padlock into place.

"I'll be in later," John said, turning away toward the smaller shed between the garage and the fence. "Got something I want to keep working on."

"What the hell you building in there, John?"

The younger man smiled, ducking his head. "See for yourself."

They walked down to the over-sized garage – or under-sized workshed, depending on your point of view – and John unlocked the doors, pushing them aside. He hit the light switch and four sets of caged bulbs flickered and steadied, the filaments brightening slowly. In the middle of the clean concrete floor, a khaki tarpaulin shrouded a low, wide shape. Mike stared as John picked up one end of the tarp and drew it back.

"That a car?" he asked, walking toward it.

It didn't look like a car, none he'd seen anyway. Low to the ground, the flattened and rakish panels were barely curved, and pressed into sharp creases where they came down over the engine to meet the polished brass grill, and bent over the wheel arches. The windshield was a smooth pane from side to side, tilted back, reducing the size of the roof, the corner pillars thin. Mike walked down the length, looking at the long, thick brass pipes that flowed out from under the car, along the side and flared outward before the rear wheels. The roof barely had a camber either, and the rear window was as wide and seemingly as unsupported as the front.

John laughed self-consciously. "A hybrid of a few."

Mike stopped at the side and peered into through the window, turning after a moment to lift his brow queryingly at John.

"Go ahead," John said, walking around to the other side and opening the passenger door.

Opening the driver's side door, Mike looked inside. The wide bench seats in the front and back were upholstered in a beige leather. Behind the steering wheel, a burled-grain timber dashboard sloped back slightly, dials and gauges dark and still for the moment, a lot more than he'd seen on any other vehicle. He slid into the low seat, ducking his head belatedly as it hit the frame.

"Seems kind of … cramped … in here," he muttered as his gaze moved slowly over the instruments.

John nodded. "It's a lot lower than the usual," he agreed. "Better airflow over the body at speed."

Mike glanced at him. "At speed? What the hell you talking about?"

"I'll show you, when it's ready," John hedged, his expression wary.

Looking back at the gauges on the dash, Mike wondered what the man had come up with. Most of the car manufacturers had been shut down after the war. The cars that had been built before were huge tanks, plenty of room to swing a cat or three, with monster in-line or V8 engines – gas-guzzling tanks, his father had said to him when he'd been a boy. That had all stopped when the wells and pumps and reserves had run dry.

In the cities, the very wealthy might have their own vehicles, custom-made, steam-driven. Coal-guzzling, he thought without a shred of humour. Mostly, the world had reverted to the four-legged producers of horsepower for their local needs and rail or ship for long-distance travel. His eyes ran over pressure gauges and revolution gauges, fuel and charge and – he blinked – a speedometer that was calibrated from zero to a hundred and twenty.

"Pop the hood, John," he said heavily, remembering to lower his head as he got out.

The click of the hood release was loud in the silence between them and Mike walked around to the front of the car as John lifted the almost flat metal sheet. Underneath, gleaming oilily in the wide bay, the V8's manifold and pipes, of polished brass and iron, filled the space completely.

"This thing won't run on steam," he grunted, the statement almost a question.

"No, it runs on alcohol," John agreed, grinning slightly as he saw Mike's expression.

"Ethanol?" Mike's gaze dropped to the engine. "So that's what you wanted Jerry's corn for?"

John nodded, going to the workbench and picking up a file. He turned back and handed it to Mike. "Found these in that old Ford we picked up for spares."

The top clipping was a spec sheet for a Model T, built in 1909. He ran his gaze down the sheet, looking at the fuel types for the engine.

John nodded as he saw his expression. "I modified the carby, the timing and the ignition. The ignition is a trembler coil, same the T's. Works better than the magneto when the weather's cold. Alcohol's fussy about it."

"They couldn't make it work smoothly enough to keep the engines they had running," Mike said, shaking his head. "Didn't go back this far, of course, but still – how'd you get it going?"

"Well, it's not all the way there yet," John said, gesturing at the car. "Haven't figured out the best mile per gallon yet, and I'm still finessing the injections. She cuts out on corners sometimes."

"You've driven it?" Mike's brows shot up. "Can I – damn, start her up!"

John shook his head. "Not tonight, got the distributor in pieces," he said, a little regretfully. "Tomorrow."

Chewing on the side of his lip, Mike stepped back and looked at the rest of the car again. "You going into automobile manufacturing?"

"No. Just a one-off."

He turned to John, wanting to ask why and the answer occurred to him as he looked at the younger man. There was nothing John could do about the fire that had taken Mary and destroyed their home, their family. The police and the fire department hadn't offered any explanations and John's version of the events of that night were garbled and nonsensical. He had no doubts that the experience had unhinged the man to some extent, although it wasn't showing much. Turning to what he did know, what he could do … it was a reasonable course of action for a man who served with distinction in the National Militia.

"Boys'll wanna see you, don't be too long," he reminded John now. "And I'm holding to you that promise about tomorrow!"

"I won't be long."

Watching him leave, John let out a soft exhale and turned to the car. Working on it had given him a purpose, when he'd been floundering and struggling. The idea of using the old and the very old in a new way had come at the right time. But it wasn't all that he was doing out here. He lowered the hood, hearing the lock catch, and looked at the filing cabinet that was almost hidden behind the racks of spare parts and sheet metal panels, walking slowly over to it. The top drawer held the smaller parts he'd scrounged for the car. The bottom drawer held books and files on the other things he'd been looking for. Reaching into it, he drew out the book that lay on the top. _A World History of the Supernatural_, the title read, in faded gold leaf against the cracked black leather cover.

He walked around the car, opening the driver's door and sliding inside. The overheads gave him enough light to read in there and a part of him felt as if the fanciful concoction he'd created was a part of this journey now, a partner and friend in discovering what had really happened on the night of November 2nd.

The book fell open to the section he'd been reading and he stared at the fine ink drawing on the right-hand side, not seeing it, seeing something else, something much more terrifying. She'd been on the ceiling. No one believed him. The fire had burst out around her like a living thing. No one believed that either. There were no rational, logical explanations for what he'd seen, what he'd felt in that room in the moments he'd looked down at his youngest son and seen the drop of blood fall onto his hand.

His chest tightened as the memory replayed in his mind's eye. A pungent stink of sulphur. The droplet, dark red against his skin, against Sammy's pillow, in the dimness of the nursery's nightlight. And Mary's face, drawn in agony as she'd stared down at him.

Help. He needed help, Kate had said, when he'd told her and Mike about what he'd seen. He did, that was true. But not the sort she was alluding to. He needed help to find out what happened that night. It had not been an overload of a traumatised mind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

* * *

><p><em><strong>February 10, 1984<strong>_

John stared sightlessly at the plate of food in front of him, the memories of the day tossing and boiling in his mind.

"John? Aren't you hungry?" Kate asked, watching him in concern.

"John?" Mike added as the man continued to gaze at the plate, oblivious to Kate's question.

"Sorry? What?" John looked up abruptly, his gaze going from Mike's frown to Kate's wrinkled brow. "Uh, sorry, lost in the clouds for a moment there."

"Aren't you hungry?" Kate repeated, gesturing to his plate.

"Uh, yeah," he told her, picking up the cutlery, aware that his son was watching him from beside Kate. He cut into the meat and lifted his fork, making what he hoped was an expression of appropriate satisfaction, although he could hardly taste the mouthful.

_Whatever was here, it was old, the psychic had told him softly as they'd stood in the burned shell of the nursery. And evil._

"_What was it?" he'd asked, an icy trickle of fear sliding up his spine and goose-fleshing his arms._

"_I don't know," Missouri had said, turning slowly as she'd looked around the room. "It was no spirit, I can tell you that. But I've never felt anything like it before. I'm sorry."_

"_It wasn't my imagination," he'd asked flatly, searching her face, her eyes._

"_No, John. What happened here was very real. Powerful real." The stout black woman had reached into the pocket of the coat she'd worn, pulling out a pair of spectacles. The frames were delicate twisted wire and a number of lenses, of different colours and thicknesses, were hinged to the sides. She drew the pale blue ones down over the ordinary glass and handed them to him._

"_In my mind, I see where the unnatural has touched, has laid its hands," she said as he put them on. "They leave a kind of fingerprint behind, vibrating in the energy of the objects around them."_

_He'd looked around, flinching back a little as he saw the handprint on the doorway, on the window-sill and against the wall. It didn't look like a human hand, the fingers elongated and multi-jointed, the shape glowing a deep carmine against the uniform grey of the rest of the room, as he saw it through the lenses over his eyes._

"_A spirit leaves a smear, nothing as clear and distinct as that. Different creatures leave different signatures of themselves."_

"_Different creatures?" he'd asked, pulling the glasses off. The room snapped back into colour, the markings invisible._

"_This world is not the only one, John," she'd told him, round cheeks lifting as she'd smiled a little sadly. "Above and below and to all sides there are others that have joins with ours, cracks and holes and gaps along the edges."_

What had she meant by that, he wondered, chewing and swallowing automatically as he thought about the visit to the house. She'd told him that she couldn't help him further. She'd given him a card, a name and address of a man in Minnesota who might be able to give him more information.

"John."

He looked up at Kate, swallowing his food.

"We have to get Dean started at school," she said, her gaze flicking to her husband. "He'll be behind –"

John nodded and looked at his son. "Yes, of course, we haven't missed that much, have we?"

"Not yet," Kate answered, looking at the little boy reassuringly. "The local school is only a couple of blocks away –"

"Tomorrow morning," John cut her off, feeling his cheeks stretch into a smile to take the sting from his abruptness, one he hoped was both genial and concerned. "We'll go in the morning."

Dean looked at Aunty Kate, seeing her smile become genuine. For some reason, he thought, she didn't see that his father's mind was elsewhere, that he was only agreeing so readily to soothe her into leaving him alone.

"Bath and bed, young man," she said to Dean, getting up to collect the plates from the table.

He slid off the chair, taking his own plate. Sammy was already in bed, in the cot in the room they shared. As he carried his plate and glass to the kitchen, he wondered if his father would remember about school in the morning.

* * *

><p><em><strong>February 15, 1984<strong>_

The streets of Kansas City were busy, the sidewalks crowded with men and women on their way to work or out for a morning constitutional, the divisions between class and wealth obvious in their apparel. Dark-suited men strode purposefully with their briefcases, newspapers tucked under an arm as they headed for their offices. In slightly less-austere colours, many of the pedestrians that crowded the sidewalk were women, tailored suits and no-nonsense hairstyles and heeled shoes proclaiming their independence.

Amidst the sombre shades that blended into the grey sidewalks and grey buildings, the wealthier ladies strolled at a more leisurely pace, tightly corseted in jackets over ballooning floor-length skirts of jewelled colours, the wan morning sunlight catching emerald and ruby satins, lighting up the ruffled lace collars and improbable concoctions of feathers and flowers in their outlandish hats. Stern-faced nannies in crisp black taffeta pushed perambulators with squalling infants through the throng, and here and there, men and women in thick woollen pants or skirts of black and brown and navy, hurried to the factories, their grimy faces sour with the prospect of the fourteen-hour shifts that were waiting for them.

Horse-drawn cabs shared the cracked and pot-holed asphalt roads with a variety of vehicles, steam-driven trucks and pedal-powered taxis and the occasional car, with their front-heavy long hoods spewing puffs of white smoke from polished pipes of gold and silver. The city was shrouded in a miasma of smoke, billowing from the tall brick stacks, rising from the traffic on the streets and from beneath them, curling upwards through iron vents set into the patched and cobbled asphalt.

Steel was manufactured in bulk using manual labour for the smelting and processing, the great automated factories had all been converted when power became something precious, something that had to be fed by hand instead of pumped effortlessly from the ground. The two coal-fired power stations that kept the city running were fed from the closest open mines, their turnover brought in daily on the railways and the boilers fed by long lines of men and boys who laboured night and day. The soot they belched into the sky had coated the buildings in a uniform dark grey within a few years, keeping store-keepers busy every morning cleaning their windows and doors and the signs that advertised their business.

John hurried along the sidewalk, his gaze flicking between the small scrap of paper in his hand and the numbers on the grimy buildings beside him, weaving through the crowds automatically. He pulled at the tight collar of the suit he was wearing, and tipped the felt hat on his head back a little more as he got closer to his goal.

The bookstore was jammed in between a haberdashery and a law office, a tall, narrow building with a set of stairs leading up from the sidewalk, a sparkling display window filled with books, old and new, taking up every free inch of space and revealing nothing of the interior. John climbed the steps and pushed the half-glass open impatiently, a jingle of a bell announcing his entrance.

Inside, a hallway led to another flight of steep steps straight ahead, and to the left a broad archway gave access to the first floor of the store, the walls lined with polished, dark timber shelving, filled to overflowing with books of every size, type and description. The centre of the room was taken up with back-to-back free-standing shelves, reaching almost to the high ceiling, and near the glass-fronted display that held the proprietor's cash register and counter, a number of smaller tables were piled with stacks of the most popular and least popular offerings.

"May I help you?"

John looked around, seeing a diminutive woman emerge from between two tall rows of shelving. Wine-red hair was piled high on top of her head, complimenting the tightly-tailored midnight-blue silk dress, and bright against the foaming lace of a jabot that framed her jaw. Fine, wire-rimmed spectacles sat on a small, pert nose, magnifying eyes that were as dark green as his own.

"Yes, I'm looking for books on the supernatural," he said, as she walked over to him. "Preferably non-fiction."

"Non-fiction books on the supernatural," she repeated slowly, a hint of the nasal drawl of the East Coast in her voice, her eyes narrowing very slightly as she looked him over. "May I enquire as to how you came to know of us?"

He held out the paper Missouri had given him. "I was given the name of your store by a psychic."

She didn't take the paper, glancing at it and back to him. "Missouri?"

He nodded. "I need help," he said. "I need information."

For a moment, she considered him, then the wariness disappeared from her eyes and a warmth replaced it. "We don't turn away those who need help."

She turned and gestured toward the rear of the store. "Come with me."

He followed her through the tight aisles between the shelves. On the rear wall there were several doors, punctuating the shelving that lined the wall. In front of the centre door, the woman stopped and drew a large set of keys from the wide pocket of her skirt, choosing one and inserting it.

"These are not approved texts," she told him, walking through the door and holding it open for him to follow. She closed the door behind them and locked it again. "We could be fined or even jailed for their possession, so if you are so incautious as to be found with them, you will not tell anyone about where you got them or about us at all."

Missouri had told him the same thing. The political manoeuvrings in the county were swinging wildly, had been for some time, between the factions of the fanatically religious and those following science. Books and knowledge, it was deemed by the party who currently held government, were too dangerous for the public.

"Were you looking for something specific?" she asked as she led them down a flight of stairs to the level below.

"No," John said. "I don't know what I'm looking for really."

"That's very honest," she said, stopping at the bottom of the stairs and switching on the lights. John stared at the room in front of them. Like the room above, it was wall-to-wall books, but here the books were far older, and hand-bound manuscripts, scrolls of parchment, of tanned skin and thin sheet metal, large hand-lettered books and tiny wood-cut editions were jammed into the spaces that the published works didn't quite fill.

"The subject is vast, I'm afraid." She looked up at him, smiling a little at the expression on his face. "Wilhelmina Rafferty," she added, holding out a small hand, the fingers thin and delicate, and ink-stained at their tips.

"John." He looked down and took her hand, hiding a flash of surprise at the wiry strength of her grip. "John Winchester."

"Well, Mr Winchester," Wilhelmina said, her voice dry. "Do you want to search here on your own, or do you want to tell me what happened that has driven you to look in a field that is despised by all?"

John looked over her head at the thousands of books in the room. He didn't have enough time to search through them all, he knew. He'd wanted help, and it was being offered.

"Four months ago, my family was attacked," he said softly. He kept his eyes fixed on hers as he described going into the nursery, the drop of blood that had fallen onto his hand. He'd told Mike and Kate, tried to explain what he'd seen, what had happened. They both thought his mind had created an alternative reality from the trauma, perhaps even some kind of rationalisation to prove to himself it hadn't been his fault. He'd told Missouri and she had listened and nodded, giving him his first hope that he hadn't imagined the events of that night. That he wasn't losing his mind.

"The ceiling just burst into flame around her," he continued, taking some hope from the way she met his gaze, her attention never wavering. "Aside from a light fitting, there was no wiring in the ceiling, none at all. And the fire department told me that the wiring wasn't defective."

Wilhelmina pursed her lips as she listened to the man's story, plucking out the relevant facts from the emotional content. The psychic's reading of the house confirmed that what had targeted the home of the man in front of her had been no spirit or monster. The confirmation sent a deep chill down her spine.

When he stopped speaking, she let her gaze fall for a moment then drew in a deep breath as she looked back up at him. "There are a limited number of beings capable of what you witnessed, Mr Winchester," she said. "A very, very limited number."

"Do you know what it was?" John asked helplessly. "Missouri couldn't tell me."

She turned away, walking through the stacks to the back of the long room. "I'm not certain," she said over her shoulder as he followed her. "The possibilities, although limited, do not exclude witchcraft or a powerful psychic."

"Why? Why would Mary be targeted by a witch or psychic?" John heard the note of despair in his voice and cleared his throat. "Why would such a person attack us?"

Wilhelmina stopped in front of a section of the shelves and turned to face him. "I don't know. Their reasons might be inexplicable to us," she said, glancing from him to the shelves behind her. "It could be something else, as well."

"What?"

Drawing in a deep breath, she looked into his face. "There have been whispers in the last ten years, Mr Winchester," she said carefully. "Whispers of very old creatures, walking on our plane. Mostly ignored, because the lore was very clear and the status quo remained unchanged for millennia, but –"

He frowned down at her. "Say what you mean plainly. I don't understand what you're talking about!"

"Demons, Mr Winchester, I'm talking about demons," she said, her voice dropping slightly.

He wanted to laugh at the word, at the assertion. Wanted to tell her she was crazy and turn around and leave and never come back. He couldn't. His feet were rooted to the floor as he stared at her.

"Demons … as in the minions of the Devil?" he said finally, doubt lacing his voice.

She smiled without humour. "This world is bounded by more dimensions than the four we readily perceive, Mr Winchester," she chided softly. The words reminded him of Missouri's and he swallowed against a fear that he was going to find out more than he ever wanted to know about the world.

"Heaven and Hell exist," she continued bluntly, seeing the reluctance to believe in his eyes. "They were held under a Command of Separation, that no full-blood could cross to this plane, that neither angel nor demon could meddle in the lives of humanity."

She saw his attention return to her, the wall raised by his doubt drop slightly. "And for a long time that command has held fast. They whisper to us in the dark, of temptation and salvation, of desire and humility, but they could not cross the lines between plane and plane."

"You're saying that's changed?"

"I didn't want to believe so," Wilhelmina said, looking away with a deep sigh. "But yes, there were – there are – rumours, of a demon, maybe more than one, on this plane."

"What rumours? Passed by who?" John asked, brows drawn together as he tried to make some sort of sense of what he was hearing.

"By the hunters," she answered simply, looking back at him.

"Hunters? Hunters of what?"

Above their heads the bell on the door jingled and Wilhelmina made a face. "I have to attend to the customer," she said, turning and gesturing to the shelves behind her. "Stay, these books cover the demonologies. To the left of them, you'll find information on witchcraft and the psychic phenomena. You need to speak to Emerson, he can tell you more than I can," she added, picking up her voluminous skirts and walking toward the stairs. "He'll be here in an hour."

John watched her hurry up the narrow staircase, thoughts reeling and churning. _Witches. Demons. Angels_. He shook his head, uncertain of what to believe, of what he could believe. He turned to the shelving, the titles leaping out at him now, and walked closer, pulling out volumes randomly. Between the staircase and the first row of shelves, a long oak table glowed beneath low-hung overhead lights. He put the armful of books he had selected onto its top and pulled out a chair, sitting down and opening the first.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

* * *

><p>It was more than an hour when he heard the footsteps on the stairs and looked up from the book he was reading. The gathered dark blue skirt, lifted to show ankle-high, buttoned-up soft kid boots and dark stockings came into view first, Wilhelmina's vivid red hair catching the light as she walked quickly to him. He looked past her to the second figure coming down the steps.<p>

Tall and thin, the man wore a worsted woollen suit in mixed shades of grey and green and mauve, the pants wide, the coat old-fashioned and long, a cream linen shirt barely visible beneath a waistcoat of richly-coloured and boldly-patterned floral tapestry. As he stepped from the stairs and came into the light, John saw a square, bony face, pale and almost-bruised looking shadows around the eye-sockets, in the hollows of the temples and under the wide cheekbones. Bright grey eyes met his through a pair of thick-lensed glasses, the gold wire frames glinting as he tilted his head.

"Mr John Winchester, I presume?" the man said, long legs striding across the floor with the same ungainliness as that of a wading bird. "Emerson Franklin Tulkinghorn."

John got up to take the proffered hand, larger than his own, but lighter.

"Mina tells me you're in trouble," Emerson said, drawing out a chair and dropping into it at the end of the table.

John glanced at Wilhelmina who shrugged. "My wife was murdered by something."

"Murdered," Emerson said slowly. "Or killed simply because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

John made a noise in his throat, looking down at the open book in front of him. "Does it matter?"

"Of course, a deliberate attack is quite different to a random event, Mr Winchester," Emerson said, leaning back in his chair. "This might seem unnecessarily personal, but what was your wife's maiden name?"

John stared at him for a moment. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"It might have quite a lot to do with it," the man said, pulling out a fob watch from the pocket of his waistcoat and looking at it. "I don't have a lot of time, and I daresay you are not so fancy-free that you can be overly generous with yours either." His eyes had shifted to John's hands, resting on the table and John looked down, seeing the traces of grime along his fingernails. The man was far more observant than he'd given him credit for.

"No," he agreed unwillingly. "Her name was Mary Campbell."

"Campbell?" Emerson turned to look at Wilhelmina. "Well, well."

"What?" John looked from Tulkinghorn to Wilhelmina and back. "Does that mean something?"

"It might, indeed, mean something," Emerson said readily. "Mina, the files on the Campbell line are in the office, would you be a darling and get them for us?"

"Of course," she said, gathering her skirts and hurrying up the stairs.

"The Clan Campbell came to America from Scotland, via London and Southampton, on the Mayflower in 1620. They had an interesting history in their homeland," Tulkinghorn said casually. "A history that continued throughout their assimilation into the new world."

"What kind of history?" John asked impatiently.

"The family was dedicated to the eradication of evil in the world," Emerson said, leaning forward. "They were hunters, one of the oldest families."

"Hunters of what?" John asked in exasperation. Did none of these people know how to explain anything simply?

"Hunters of the shadows, Mr Winchester," Emerson told him. "Of the evil and the creatures of evil that hides in the darkness."

"What are you talking about?"

Emerson laughed softly, his mouth turning down in a rueful smile. "I'm talking about vampires and werewolves, about ghosts and goblins and shapeshifters and wraiths and wights," he said, looking John in the eye. "I'm talking about demons and angels and the half-breeds that still walk the world with us, hidden for the most part but occasionally showing up to change the lines of destiny and Fate for this person or that. And I'm talking the men and women who have hunted them down from the beginning of Time."

John sat still, staring at the man sitting opposite, unable to think of a single thing to say to that.

"It's a shock, I know," Emerson said, leaning back again. "It was to me and I had a better headstart on the whole business than most."

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a carved pipe with a deep bowl, tapping it clean on the edge of the table and drawing a small pouch of tobacco from the same pocket. "The world that we see around us, Mr Winchester, is but a small slice of reality. Behind this world there are others, and the hunters are those who can move between them, keeping as many safe as is possible considering that they are but a fraction of the general population."

"You're saying that Mary – my wife, Mary – was one of these … hunters?" John asked disjointedly. He thought of his wife, with her flowered apron and floury hands, smiling at him when he'd come home from work. Mary feeding Sam softened vegetables with a tiny spoon. Mary, cutting Dean's fine blonde hair when it got too long and flopped over his son's eyes. Mary, scowling at him and gesturing pointedly at the trash bags that stood beside the back door. His Mary.

"Well, that remains to be seen," Emerson said, tamping down the tobacco and dragging a match over the sole of his shoe, lighting the pipe. "But I would suspect that, yes, she was a part of an old hunting family – and that might have a bearing on what has happened in your life."

"You have to have the wrong person," John said tightly. "Mary was a loving mother and a wonderful wife."

"To you, perhaps," he said, drawing on the pipe and shaking out the match. They both looked around as Wilhelmina's footsteps tapped down the stairs. In her arms, she held a thick pile of hand-bound files, their red leather covers stitched at the spine.

John looked down at the pile as she dropped the stack in front of him. The name, Campbell, was the cover of each, followed by a set of dates. He opened the topmost file, dated 1950-1983, and set it on top of the book he'd been reading.

At the front, concertinaed against the inside of the stiff cover, a genealogical tree had been attached. Opening it, he saw her name at the bottom. Mary Kathleen Campbell. Born to Samuel Ezra Campbell and Deanna Mae Hoskins on May 19th, 1954 in Lawrence, Kansas. He touched her name lightly. In the file, her marriage to John Henry Winchester, born April 22nd, 1954 was noted. Under their names were those of their sons, Dean Iain Winchester, born January 24, 1979 and Samuel Henry Winchester, born May 2nd, 1983. And her death had been noted as well. November 2nd, 1983.

"Who updated this?" he asked, looking at Tulkinghorn belligerently. "You knew who I was?"

"The Order did," he acknowledged. "As soon as her death was confirmed. Yes, John, we know of you. I do apologise for our discretionary procedures. In the last few years it has become regrettably but vitally important that our business is kept secret and the histories held sacrosanct."

John stared at him, his thoughts whirling. "Did you know it would happen?"

"No," Mina said. "We only heard of her death recently."

"Heard? How?"

Wilhelmina leaned across the table and pulled out one of the files, flipping it open. The file held newsclippings, carefully cut out and neatly pasted onto thicker paper. The topmost was the report on the fire in the house in Lawrence. Under it, the obituary he'd written out for the paper had been cut and pasted on as well.

"Why?"

"It is –" Emerson said, glancing at the woman beside him. "– a part of our work, to keep these files up to date."

The man looked at his pipe and tapped the bowl out, refilling it slowly. "These files are held in trust, in the interest of knowledge only. They are not released nor are viewable to any but those most intimately connected to the families."

"I don't understand."

"I know," Emerson said, his tone gentle. He relit the pipe and looked at him. "There is too much history to explain now, so I must beg your indulgence, and your patience, for the moment. What is more important is what has happened."

"Mr Winchester," Wilhelmina said. "We believe that the entity that attacked your family is most likely a demon, the demon that we believe escaped from Hell in 1972."

A demon. Escaped from Hell. Attacking his family. He couldn't make those pieces fit together. Glancing at the files, he looked from Wilhelmina to Emerson, shaking his head.

"And you think it chose Mary deliberately, because of who she was? Because of her family?"

"That's one possibility," Emerson said. "It may have had another agenda."

"Another agenda like what?" John asked, brows drawing together. He couldn't imagine why a demon would look for Mary. Yet, according to Missouri, and with what he'd seen … he couldn't discount it entirely either.

"It may not have been looking for your wife, Mr Winchester," Emerson said, his eyes shadowed. "It may have wanted one or both of your children."

John felt his body flush with heat and then an icy chill at that idea. The boys were with Kate, in Lawrence, unprotected. "What? Why?"

"We don't know," the lanky man said, spreading his hands in a vaguely apologetic gesture. "Something to do with your family? Something entirely unrelated – guessing demonic motivation is not an easy task."

Wilhelmina frowned at him and turned back to John. "This demon, it has been in our world for more than ten years, but so far it has been untraceable. We don't know how it got out, and we don't know why. We have found other instances of attacks similar to yours, on the homes of young families."

"Hunting families?"

"No," Emerson took over, shaking his head. "That's why the attacks are so difficult to find a reason for. There is nothing in common between the families who have been affected. In fact, so far as we have been able to ascertain, yours is the only family with a hunter connection at all."

John rubbed a hand over his face in frustration, not sure if he was trying to rub some sense into what they were saying, or wipe it all out. He was a long way from home and his sons, his children were there without him – his thoughts leapfrogged from one scenario to another, each one worsening. He didn't have the time for these riddles and half-answers.

"I have to go, my boys are alone, just with a friend – they're not safe."

He got up abruptly, snatching his coat from the back of the chair and struggling into it, aware that his heart had accelerated its beat, his chest was tight. He'd lost Mary. He could not lose his children as well.

"You need information, Mr Winchester," Emerson said, standing as well. "You can't leave not knowing what is at –"

"I can't think of this right now," John snapped at him. "What you've said, what is here –" He looked down at the table, gesturing sharply at the files and books. "– I can't deal with this right now, not until I know my boys are safe."

"I understand that, but –"

"No!" He strode for the stairs, leaving the books and files behind. "I'll come back, when I know it's safe," he threw over his shoulder, taking the stairs three at a time.

Wilhelmina and Emerson stood on either side of the table and listened to the heavy tread of his boots as he reached the top and cross the floor above.

"He's at risk, the Order will not understand why you let him go unprotected," Wilhelmina said worriedly, turning to the tall man.

"He isn't trained," Emerson replied, looking down in surprise at the pipe in his hand as if he'd forgotten about it completely. Which of course he had. "He would be in more danger if we took him now, before we know the full truth of what Azazel is doing on this plane, than if we let him go."

"That is debatable."

He smiled at her, tapping the ash from the pipe and pocketing it. "Not really, Mina. It's my decision to make. He's not ready."

"He needs help."

"Yes, he does. And we shall offer it to him, when he returns."

"And if he doesn't return?" she asked diffidently, not certain that the big man would want to come back to face the unpalatable truth of his life.

Emerson was silent for a long moment. "We will seek him out, when he has had a chance to absorb what he has learned thus far."

Shaking her head, Wilhelmina gathered the files from the table and carried them back up the stairs.

* * *

><p>John wrenched open the door and hurried down the steps to the sidewalk, looking in both directions at the prosaic city scene as his pulse slowed and the heaving of his chest steadied.<p>

_Mary, a – a hunter_. Whatever the hell that meant, he thought astringently. A demon, marking his family, perhaps after his children. He strode along toward the railway station, his stride lengthening unconsciously, images of what could have happened, what could be _happening_ in Lawrence, tumbling and rolling around behind his eyes. He couldn't lose them, couldn't.

The train was at the platform as he purchased his ticket, steam puffing slowly from the high funnel and a garbled voice blasting through the station speakers. Running for the end carriage, he felt his ears prickle suddenly and he slowed, his gaze scanning the almost-empty platform as he looked for the source of the discomfort. Aside from the station conductor, there were only a few others standing on the raised concrete siding, an elderly woman sitting on a bench, reading a newspaper; a mother kneeling in front of her two children and attempting to remove the dirt from their faces, and a man, leaning against the brick wall of the station house, several yards away down the platform, wearing a long coat with its collar pulled up around his neck and the broad-brimmed fedora pulled down low over his face. The uncomfortable prickle became more pronounced as he stared at the shadowed face beneath the hat's brim, feeling the man's eyes on him.

The piercing shriek of the train's whistle broke his concentration and he ran to the door of the last carriage, jumping and catching hold of the pole at the side, swinging himself on as the engine pulled the train along in a series of slow jerks. Turning to look back at the man as he leaned against the outside door, he felt a frisson of fear spark along his nerves. There was no one standing there now, the long brick wall empty.

He couldn't shake the hollow feeling the man had raised in him, as the train drew away from the station, its wheels racheting more loudly as it increased speed. Staggering a little as the train lurched around a corner, he turned from the open end of the carriage and opened the sliding door to the interior. He made his way slowly up the juddering aisle and found an empty seat. Dropping into it, he moved across to the window, his shoulder pressed against the glass as he stared sightlessly at the scenery moving past faster and faster.

The prickle had always been a warning to him, a physical reaction to something he had sensed unknowingly. It had saved him several times in his tour of service, and had never once been wrong. It had strengthened as he'd looked at the man, he realised belatedly, wondering what on earth that meant. He'd seen a man, he told himself, ordinary-looking; even the pulled-down brim and pulled-up collar might only have been an indication of the chill in the wind that had been blowing across the platform.

The closely-packed brownstones gave way to smaller tenements, then began to thin out at the edge of the city. John's gaze focussed on the scenery as the houses disappeared and farmland, chequered in a dull patchwork of ploughed and resting fields, filled the window.

He would be home soon, he thought, leaning back against the seat and trying to relieve the tension in his neck and shoulders. Sammy would crawl across the floor, a wide, gummy smile for him when he walked through the door, and Dean would have the day's outrageous tales of school to tell him, filled with the adventures only a five-year old boy with an extraordinarily vivid imagination could conjure. They would be safe, he repeated to himself under his breath. They would be fine.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

* * *

><p>The train pulled into the Lawrence station with a neck-snapping series of snatches, and John got up thankfully, trying to roll the stiffness from his shoulders as he walked down the aisle to the rear door.<p>

He stepped off the train onto the platform and hurried to the gate, pulling the collar of his jacket up as a flurry of snowflakes blew across the flat open fields behind the station and swirled around the disembarking passengers, barely noticing his fellow travellers as they surged forward together.

"It's John Winchester, isn't it?" A voice said from beside him. John slowed, his head turning to see the man from Kansas City pacing him, collar still drawn up and his hat still pulled down. He didn't recognise the southern drawl, or the dim profile that was all he could see of the man.

"Have we met?" he asked, slowing more as the crowd milled, pressing together to get through the narrow exit.

"No, John, I don't believe we have been formally introduced," the man said, turning slightly, one side of the wide mouth lifting. "I've met your wife, though, and your boys."

John stopped abruptly, hand reaching out for the man's arm, yanking him to a stop.

"How did you manage that?"

The man looked down at the hand on his coat sleeve and back up at John, pale blue eyes meeting his as his smile widened.

"It's a long story, and I know you're keen to be home with your children, John," he said quietly, the underlying tone holding a thread of amusement that sent a shiver up John's neck. His ears were prickling furiously.

"You've been poking your nose where you shouldn't, John boy," the man continued as John's hand dropped from his arm. "Don't make the mistake of thinking that anyone can help you now. They can't."

"What the hell are you talking about?" John hissed at him, stepping closer. He could see the man's features now, despite the dim light of the overcast afternoon, despite the shadowing brim of the hat.

"I'm talking about people who will tell you they can help, when they cannot," the man said firmly, the humour gone from the pale eyes. "People who will try and take your sons from you, in the name of safety, and who will put them at worse risk than if you keep them with you."

"What do you know about this?!"

"Everything, John," the man said and he lifted his chin a little, his irises lightening, the blue swirling into a deep yellow that covered them completely, pupilless and glowing in the deep eye-sockets. He smiled at John's backward flinch and his eyes returned to a pale blue, crinkling up at the corners. "Look after your family. You keep your boys with you and all will be well."

He vanished as John took another step toward him, the air rushing to fill the place where he'd stood with a slight pop.

John's head snapped left and right, looking for any sign of him, but he'd gone. No one else on the rapidly clearing platform seemed to have noticed anything untoward, he realised with a sense of disbelief. To his left and right, the commuters hurried through the gate, their heads bowed against the wind-driven snow, shoulders hunched against the cold.

The way the eyes had turned, from blue to yellow, a deeply glowing yellow, shifting and marbling like flame in a draught, and back again played over and over in his mind. It was impossible, he thought, turning slowly and walking through the gate. As impossible as the man vanishing into thin air. As impossible as a woman pinned to the ceiling and the ceiling erupting in an inferno around her. He felt his heartbeat begin to boom against his ribs as that thought hit him and he hurried out of the station, running by the time he'd reached the corner, sprinting as he crossed the bridge.

It was the thing, he thought, the incoherence of that idea dashing against everything he knew about the world and living in it. The thing – a thing – that had killed Mary. The thing that was after his boys. Those thoughts swirled and staggered in his mind, fuelling his fear as he ran blindly down the streets, jacket flapping, ignoring the startled expressions of the people he dodged and swerved around, racing through the horse-drawn wagons and carts and past the slow, steam-driven trucks.

It'd seen him go to the city, seen him go to the bookstore, he thought, panicking now, heart racing uncontrollably and his chest constricting tighter and tighter. Adrenalin surged through his body as he forced himself to go faster. It knew where he'd been and what he'd been doing and … it …

_KNEW WHERE HE LIVED._

Turning onto the street that held Mike's home and garage, John was gasping for breath as he rocketed along the crumbling sidewalk, sweat streaming down his face, stinging his eyes and blurring his vision, his muscles aching and burning as he pushed harder beyond his limits. He hit the front walk of the house and skidded on the snow-covered surface, catching the gatepost and sling-shotting himself around it and barely keeping his footing. He took the porch steps four at a time and slamming his shoulder into the door as he twisted the knob.

Bursting into the hall, his face reddened and wet, his chest heaving, he saw Kate frozen in the doorway to the living room, Dean behind her, both staring wide-eyed at him as the door crashed into the wall behind him and rebounded.

"John –!" Kate barely had time to get the word before he was in front of her, on his knees and Dean enfolded tightly in his arms.

"Where's Sammy?" he barked at her.

"Upstairs," she stammered. "He's taking a –"

"Dean, get your bag packed, we've got to get out of here," John cut her off and released his son, turning and rising in the one motion as he ran for the stairs. "Get everything you need."

"Daddy –" Dean's voice wavered uncertainly.

"NOW, DEAN!" John thundered as he reached the top of the staircase and ran down the hall to the boys' bedroom.

He managed to stop himself from slamming open that door, his pulse settling as he saw Sammy sleeping in the cot, covers pushed off and two fingers in his mouth.

Thank God, he thought as he walked slowly across the room, his gaze darting around, looking for any signs that someone – or something – had been there. There was nothing, and he leaned against the side of the cot, wiping a hand over his face, feeling it come away wet, relief pricking at the back of his eyes as his felt his fear dissipate slowly and a surge of protective love for his children fill him past bearing.

He didn't know what to think of the man who'd confronted him. Not a man, he reminded himself tightly. Something else. Demon? He didn't know if that was possible, although Tulkinghorn and his assistant had seemed reasonably certain of it. How was he supposed to protect his children against a demon?

_Get out of here_, the pragmatic voice at the back of his mind told him. _Now_. He nodded to himself. Running would buy him some time, time to find out about whatever that thing was. Running would put a safe distance between it and the boys. He thought of the card Missouri had given him. North, then. To Minnesota. He would see the man she'd told him about first. Then maybe, he would return to the bookstore in KC and try and find out more from the pair there.

He heard Dean come into the room behind him and turned around, smiling at him, hoping the smile was reassuring enough for the little boy. From Dean's expression, he thought it probably wasn't.

He walked to the single bed against the wall and sat down, holding his arms out to his son.

"I'm sorry I scared you, Dean," he said as Dean walked over to him. Wrapping his arms around him, John lifted him onto his knee. His son looked up into his face, his eyes round and serious.

"We have to go, we're not safe here anymore," John said quietly, noticing the boy's eyes were changing colour, the blue of babyhood was flecked with green now, a dark green that hinted his son would have irises the same colour as his. In shape, they were his mother's.

"Aunty Kate is upset," Dean said, glancing at his little brother's cot. "She called Uncle Mike."

_Naturally_, John thought tiredly. "Well, that can't be helped. We have to leave as soon as we can, get far away from here."

"Is something bad coming?"

The question, as serious as Dean's expression, floored him. When had his five-year old developed such a grasp of reality, he wondered bleakly, such a sense of what the adults around him were thinking and feeling? He wanted to lie to him, to tell him that they would be fine, that they would be able to get away. Looking into the little boy's face, he couldn't make the words come out.

"I think so," he said instead, swallowing roughly as he felt a deep and bitter regret for the lost years of childhood he could see ahead for his eldest son.

"Is it after Sammy?"

John shook his head slightly, trying to ignore the secondary wave of disbelief at the acuity of Dean's perceptions. "I don't know," he said slowly, following Dean's gaze to the cot. "I don't know what it's after, Dean. I just know we can't stay here."

Nodding seriously, Dean slid off his knee and went to the closet, opening the door and pulling out the khaki-green canvas duffel they'd packed their few surviving clothes and toys into when the house fire had been extinguished. John watched him put it on the end of the bed, unzipping it and going to the small chest of drawers next to the closet.

"I'll be back in five minutes," he told Dean, getting to his feet slowly, the leaden ache of his muscles reminding him of the frantic run through the town. "And then we'll go, alright?"

Dean nodded, carrying an armful of clothes from the open drawer to the bag and stuffing them into it.

John walked out of the room and down the hall to the room next door to get his own things.

* * *

><p>He heard the front door open and close, and the heavy clump of Mike's footsteps coming up the stairs as he zipped his duffel closed, meeting the older man in the hallway.<p>

"What is going on, John?" Mike said, his face screwed up in confusion. "Kate was almost in hysterics when she –"

"I'm sorry, Mike, we have to go," John cut him off and walked past him to the boys' room.

"What? Why!?"

"You ready, Dean?" John ignored the man behind him, looking at his son. Dean stood by Sammy's cot, the bulging canvas duffel at his feet, the drawers and closet open and empty. He nodded to his father, picking up the heavy bag and heaving it over one thin shoulder.

"John!" Mike said loudly. "What happened?"

"I don't have time to explain, Mike," John said, slinging his duffel higher over his shoulder as he walked to the cot and wrapped Sam in the blankets, lifting him out and cradling him in one arm.

"You can't be serious about this, there's a snowstorm outside, you can't just take the boys out –" Mike blustered, staring from John and the still-sleeping baby to Dean's downcast face and back again. "They'll freeze, they'll get sick and –"

"Mike," John cut him off again, walking to him. "I can't explain. We'll be fine if we leave now. The car's ready and I've got plenty of fuel. We have to go. I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" Mike stared at him incredulously. "We're partners. What about the garage? What about the jobs that you've committed to? You can't just take off like this!"

"It's yours," John said abruptly, gesturing to Dean to go. "All of it. I'm sorry about the jobs but I'm done here."

"Done here!" Mike's eyes bulged. "Just like that?"

"I'm afraid so."

He followed his son out of the room and down the stairs. At the bottom, next to the front door, Kate was wringing her hands together.

"John, it's snowing out there, you can't take them out tonight," she pleaded, her eyes filling and overflowing, leaving shining tracks down her cheeks.

"They'll be fine, Kate," he said, as gently as he could. "We'll be in the car in a few minutes."

"John, you're leaving me no choice, I'll have to call the police if you insist on risking your kids this way," Mike said as he came down the stairs.

John repressed a humourless laugh as he thought of the steam-driven and horse-driven police vehicles trying to keep up with the black car. "You do what you have to, Mike, but we're going."

Dean opened the door, the wind snatching it from his small hand. A frigid gust blew into the hall, filled with tumbling snowflakes.

"Dean, get your coat," John told him, lifting down his own from the rack beside the door. "Get it on."

"John, please, _please_ think about this," Kate plucked at his sleeve, staring at Sam.

"I have, Kate," he said, draping the thick woollen coat over his youngest child. "I've done nothing but think about it. I can't explain this to you – either of you, but believe me, this is the only way to protect my sons. I'm sorry."

He could hear Mike in the living room, talking to someone on the phone and he pulled his arm free of her weak grip, following Dean onto the porch. The snow was falling thick and fast, whipped around by the wind that dropped the temperature steeply.

Resettling the bag over his shoulder and pulling his coat more closely about the infant in his arms, he followed Dean down to the front walk, watching the little boy staggering slightly against the gusts, weighed down on one side by the heavy canvas bag. They would be at the workshop in a few minutes, he told himself, the bitter bite of the swirling air cutting through the suit he wore easily. Just a few minutes.

Snow was coating the sidewalk, and they walked in silence, down the street and around the corner to the big lot holding the garage and the sheds. Unlocking the gates, John glanced down at the little he could see of Sam's head, his soft, fine hair blowing in the icy breeze. As he pulled the coat over his son's head, he saw Sam's face scrunching up a little, the cold beginning to wake him and he hurriedly pushed the big gates open, lengthening his stride and holding Sam closer, looking up to see Dean struggling to open the doors to the shed that held the black car.

Those doors were a pain to move one-handed as well, and Dean dropped his bag, pushing hard with his shoulder to the edge to get them started. Reaching him, John looked down at him, shunting aside his astonishment at Dean's ready understanding of what was needed and his unasked-for decision to get on with it. He put his hand against the edge and shoved hard, and the boy pushed the door the rest of the way, turning back fast and picking up the bag to follow his father inside.

"Get in the back," John told him quietly, walking to the rear door of the car and passing the bundled baby to his brother as soon as Dean was settled. "You'll have to hold him, Dean, we don't have anything to put him in."

"Yes, sir," Dean murmured, wrapping his arms around his brother and looking down at him. John put the two duffels on the seat beside him and pulled an old woollen blanket from the front seat, spreading it over them both. He closed the door and picked up the crank handle from the floor, pulling out the choke and warming the coil, then walking around the front to crank her over.

The handle pulled against him and the cold from the outside froze his bare hands as he kept going, hearing the sluggishly turning engine with rising frustration. As slow as the police were, they'd be here eventually and he couldn't take anything else to get out of here.

The engine caught on the next turn, stuttering and coughing as the fuel moved through the reluctantly warming pipes. He waited for a few seconds until he was sure it would keep running, then pulled the crank out and slid into the driver's seat, glancing in the rear-view mirror at his sons. Under the blanket, he could just see the shock of blond hair and a pair of dark eyes looking back at him.

"Ready?" he asked. Dean nodded, tightening his grip on his baby brother.

In the distance and over the noise of the big engine, John could hear the faint whoo-whoo of the police and he sent a silent apology to Mike as he put the car into gear and drove slowly from the shed and through the wide-open yard gates. He wasn't going to stop to close them and he hoped the police would arrive before any looters saw them open. The worsening storm was no guarantee that they wouldn't be out, scavenging for anything useful.

He left the headlights off, the luminescence of the thick snow in the evening twilight giving him enough light to see by. The tyres bit into the snow, chunky treads from a small tractor providing all the grip he would need, even when he ran out of real road.

The black car disappeared into the falling snow, turning the corner at the end of the block as the police wagon came into the end of the street. Even the tracks were filled by the time the policemen had pulled up in front of the open gates and the distant chug of the engine was lost as the wind speed increased again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

* * *

><p><em><strong>February 20, 1984, US-169 N, Iowa<strong>_

John heard the engine stutter and looked at the tank gauge on the dash in front of him. The needle hovered between three-quarters and empty, and he frowned as the engine stuttered again, slowing down. Tapping the glass cover of the gauge, he felt his heart stutter as well as the needle dropped abruptly below the small red 'E' and the car, on cue, stopped completely. He'd poured the last can of the ethanol he'd made from Jerry Cobb's corn into the tank three hours ago.

So.

They were stuck here. He looked along the empty and broken road. They were at least an hour from the last town, and that hadn't really even been a town, more like a wide spot in the cracked and fissured road. The sun was low to the west, casting a bloody red glow over the thinly settled snow that rimed the fields and bare woods to either side of them. It was cold already without the heat from the engine flowing back into the cabin, and it would get colder, the thin metal transferring the freezing temperatures and holding them through the hours of the night.

He almost missed the old barn, half-hidden behind the tangled branches and shadows of the copse of birch that ran alongside the left-hand side of the road. The red light delineated one sharp vertical line a wall for a moment and his eyes picked up the rest.

If he could get the car over the flat ground they were stopped on, they would be able to roll down to it, he thought, looking at the hollows the low-level light showed against the white cover. It was definitely worth a try. He didn't want to leave the car out in the open, but they couldn't stay in it either.

Putting the car into neutral and releasing the brake he was very relieved to find that they didn't roll backward. That would help. He got out and put his weight behind the door pillar, his boot soles slipping a little on the dry snow. Digging his toes in, he heaved against the inertia of the car's standing weight, not even worrying about the wheel. The car moved a little, unwillingly over the rough ground and without the help of engine or gravity. He pushed again, breath bursting out in a grunt, rewarded by another inch along the flat ground. Again, and another inch. And again, and he felt the car continue on, the drop in the road finally reached, gaining speed as it rolled down the incline. Slipping back into it, he closed the door and leaned over the wheel, squinting in the dim light at the edge of the road, hoping there would be a driveway of some kind leading to the building.

Fate must have been smiling on them, he decided as he saw the break in the weeds. The access road dipped as well and he turned the wheel, the car slowing almost to a stop with the turn but maintaining just enough to get off the broken asphalt and then it rolled faster as the slope led them to the barn's entrance. There were no doors and it rolled obediently inside, stopping as John touched the brake before they reached the back wall.

He opened the door and got out, looking up at what seemed to be a reasonably solid roof above them. It would help keep them warm. The building was empty, the dirt floor mostly clean, leaf debris scattered near the doorway from blow in but none further inside.

Opening the trunk, he pulled out their meagre supply of camping goods, setting the small stove away from the car a little, and getting out the canvas tarpaulin which would help keep the falling cold from reaching the metal. He opened the rear door, seeing that Dean and Sammy were still asleep, Dean curled around his baby brother, the blanket over both of them. Leaving them there and locking the car carefully, John pocketed the keys and hurried out into the murky dusk. He would need dry wood, as much as he could gather to be able to cook something on the little stove, put warm food or at least a hot drink into their stomachs and keep them a little warmer through the night.

* * *

><p>Under a nearby copse of leafless saplings, he found branches and sticks, breaking the larger ones into manageable pieces with his foot and filling his arms. The simple task required no thought and his mind drifted back over the past few days, their journey out of the city limits and into the wilderness that divided the city states from one another.<p>

It had been slow-going, that journey, over the barest of tracks to avoid the towns and cities along the mostly paved and more direct route, camping or finding a place to stay each night when he couldn't keep driving. It was a good test of the car's capabilities, he knew, that knowledge accompanied by a slight bitterness.

He would need to find somewhere to stop and settle in for a while because the long drive had shown him there were a lot of modifications that needed to be made before the car functioned as he'd intended, and his boy really needed to be back in school, learning, making friends, being a child.

He had no idea of how he was going to make that work.

Stumbling back through the darkness, he dumped the load by feel next to the car and pulled out the flint and steel from his jacket pocket, lighting a small candle first to see what he was doing, then laying down the kindling and small branches and lighting the fire. The flickering flames added an illusory warmth to the interior of the barn at least, he thought, feeding the fire with branches until the first embers glowed at the base and he could build it up.

If the question of what next had been pressing before, now it had become an imperative. The car did thirty-five miles per hour. Which meant that the wide spot was thirty-five miles back, give or take a few. It would take longer than a day to walk it, with a five-year old and a baby to carry. There wasn't anything closer ahead, he thought. Not until Blue Earth. So many of the small towns had died out, unable to produce enough to survive on.

"Are we there?" Dean asked, tousled head sticking out through the window. John turned and smiled at him.

"No, not quite," he said. "Is Sammy awake?"

"Almost," Dean said, looking over his shoulder. "He's starting to stretch."

"Better get something warmed up for you two," John said, pulling out a couple of packets of dehydrated sea rations. He'd picked up several cases of them in Carroll and that had been the last town of any size they'd gone through, he realised.

Getting to his feet, he grabbed the pot and walked outside, filling it with clean snow.

The snow melted over the fire and he dumped the packs in. The resultant mush was at least soft enough for Sammy to eat easily, though he saw Dean's nose wrinkle up at the spoon he held.

_I met your wife, though, and your boys_. The demon's words trickled back to him, nagging at him.

If it had been in the nursery that night, it would've seen Mary and Sammy, the logical part of his mind told him. But not Dean. Why had it said _boys_? Had it been in the house longer than he'd realised? He'd fallen asleep, listening to the radio, on the big chair in the living room, waking to Mary's scream. Anything could've happened. The thought brought a deep shudder of revulsion and he tried to hide it, turning away from the car and adding more branches to the fire.

Boiling another pot of snow, John helped Dean to wash himself, cleaned up Sammy, changing his diaper and looking at the rapidly diminishing pile he had left. He needed somewhere to stop for a while. Get things organised. Someplace safe. That litany looped through his mind endlessly but he couldn't think of where to find a place like that. Was there any place in the world that was safe for them now?

In clean clothes, with full stomachs, both children's eyelids were drooping and John rearranged the back seat for them, making a nest of the thick blankets and coats and settling both onto the wide seat, the canvas bags on either side. Together, they would be warmer, he thought, watching Dean curl his arms around Sammy, covering them with the blanket and the coats, heaped together over them both. His eldest had already assumed a lot of responsibility for the baby, becoming more and more attuned to Sammy's needs every day. He wasn't sure that was a desirable thing, a thing to foster, but he couldn't deny it helped now, helped him to get on with what he needed to do.

He closed the car door, making sure all the windows were shut, and that both back doors were securely locked. The front seat was long enough for him to stretch out, but his ears were prickling slightly and he turned back to the fire, setting another pot of snow on the fire to boil for coffee. Mike had told him years ago that it wasn't real coffee, not the way it'd used to be. Some blend of the few beans that intrepid explorers brought back mixed with wild chicory from the south. He wondered vaguely how the real coffee had tasted.

The fire crackled and sighed quietly, and he sat in front of it, watching the flames absently. The demon had warned him off the bookstore, he thought. That had been the real purpose of its appearance. _Keep your boys with you_, it'd said. _Don't look for answers_. What was it afraid of?

He pulled in a deep breath, realising he'd allowed his emotions to drive him. First out of the store and away from the people who might have been able to help, then away from Lawrence and the relative stability he'd had there. He stared at the flames, feeling uncertainty about his plan. Should he go back?

The question wasn't as straightforward as he wanted it to be. No matter how irrational he'd been to leave, the fact remained that it knew him, knew where they had lived. And that was a danger, no matter what the fucking thing had said to the contrary.

He would have to go back to the store, but not until he had a base that was utterly secure, he thought. Everything that had happened had been out of his experience, out of his knowledge, out of his control. That had to change.

Mary and her entire family, apparently, had been hunters. He still didn't know what that meant, exactly. Tulkinghorn had talked of monsters, of ghosts. He still wasn't sure if the man had been on the level. Surely, someone would have seen such things, gone to the papers and reported it if they'd been around.

_Maybe, maybe not_, the voice in his mind, the one he thought of as being the rational, objective side of himself, countered. The cities were becoming more and more divided. And very few people left the environments in which they'd been raised now. The open country between towns and the farms and the cities had grown wilder as each decade passed, and there was a lot of talk that the population was actually declining, instead of growing. His memories of what Mike had said of the world before the oil had run out returned. Mike was near to twenty years older, and they'd spent a lot of time in talk while working on the vehicles, about nothing in particular, just their opinions on the world.

His partner in the garage had just been a boy, but he'd told him about the wars, world wars and the leaps in technology that were almost impossible today. If there had been monsters around the whole time, wouldn't that've been known back then, he wondered? When the world had been connected and close? When newspapers had reported everything that went on? There were myths and fables, fairy tales and legends, but they couldn't have been true.

His ears began to prickle again and he sat up straighter, looking around the quiet, shadowy interior of the barn. He had no weapons, not even a knife longer than the iron clasp knife he'd carried since he'd been a boy. He heard a bump against one of the barn walls and his head snapped around as he got to his feet, fingers feeling for the knife and opening the blade, the firelight flickering on the walls creating more shadows than it dispelled.

A movement at the door snagged his attention and he turned his head to see a figure slip inside from the darkness, tattered clothing fluttering around the skeletal limbs, strained over a pot belly. It turned its head to look at him, and the fire brightened momentarily. In disbelief, he stared at the grey skin, sagging and drooping from the bones of the skull, ulcerated sores weeping along the cheeks. Red-rimmed eyes, set deep in the sockets, stared back at him, and the loose mouth stretched out a little, showing blackened, rotted teeth.

John had no idea of what it was. The warm air rising from the fire drew a faint breeze into the barn and he caught a scent on it, carried from the creature, a whiff of rot and sickness.

His feet unrooted themselves as he saw another come in behind the first, and then another and he bent, dragging a long, flaming branch from the fire, holding it up with one hand, the four-inch iron knife in the other as he tried to keep track of them. Three of the car doors were locked, the windows up but not the fourth and the hammering of his heart against his ribs, the fear that was twisting up inside of him, was taking his concentration from the adversaries in front of him.

The leader sidled around the fire, drawing his gaze as the other two moved around the other side of the car. John swore inwardly and backed toward the vehicle, flicking a glance over his shoulder as he saw long, grey fingers scrabbling over the smooth glass and metal, filthy, matted heads bowing to look inside the car at his sons.

"Fresh meat," one of the creatures behind the car crooned softly and the words, and the voice, raised the hairs on the back of his neck, his ears burning with alarm.

"Stay away from them!" he snarled, swinging the burning branch over the roof of the car at the thing. It flinched back from the flames, eyes glittering in their light.

"One against three?" the leader said as he reached the end of the hood and looked hungrily at John. "Bad odds."

The phrasing struck at John. _Human_. These, whatever they were, had once been human beings.

"Worse for you," he retorted, taking a step toward it and jabbing the branch at its face.

It leapt backward, and the third creature raced around the trunk of the car, throwing itself onto his back.

The stench was bad up close. John dropped his shoulder, slashing at the thing's hand and slammed his foot on its chest as it dropped to the ground next to him. He felt the give of the bones under his boot and it shrieked as he stabbed the flaming branch into its face. The smell of the thing burning was worse.

On the other side of the car, a window smashed, and John bent and slashed the knife across the creature's throat, yanking his arm back as it clutched at it. The leader roared and barrelled toward him, and he jerked upright, swinging the branch wildly as he heard Dean's scream from the back seat. Adrenalin exploded through his body and he felt the end of the branch hit the creature, the impact reverberating through his fingers and wrist. He stabbed wildly at it, tripping over the legs of the half-burned creature under him, and lost the branch as the leader ducked under the fiery end and yanked it from his grip.

"Daddy!"

Scrambling backwards away from the thing, John hauled the driver's door open and launched himself across the seat, his fist punching through the side of the face of the thing that was trying to drag Dean out through the broken window. It grunted and turned to him, spewing a stream of noxious yellow fluid at him as it pulled harder at the little boy. Dean twisted around in its grip, his small sneakers flat against the inside of the door as he pulled back, face screwing up as the creature's long nails dug into his arm.

"LET HIM GO!" John roared, wiping the fluid from his nose and mouth, leaning forward to drive his small iron blade into its eye.

It dropped the boy, its hand flying up to its face, pulling back out of the car. John looked down at the boys, seeing blood streaming down Dean's arm from the shoulder. His son's gaze shifted past him and John saw the big blue eyes widen, half-turning to see the leader behind him, then a fist hit the back of his head.

He was knocked forward into the opposite door, and he heard Dean scream again before the next blow hit higher and his vision shrank to a pinpoint.

_God, stay conscious_, he told himself, hanging onto that pinpoint of light furiously. _Don't pass out, gotta save the boys, don't give up you bastard, fight! FIGHT!_

He tried to turn and felt the weight of the thing land on his back, felt the gusting breath against the bare skin of his neck, heard Dean scrabbling in the back. He couldn't pull in a deep breath with the creature on his back and couldn't find the strength he needed to throw it off.

Light blazed into the barn and car, accompanied by a deep rumbling. The creature's weight was abruptly gone, Sam's wailing filling the car and John rolled onto his side, trying to take in what he was seeing.

A man had hold of the creature, his arm seemingly mechanised, sheathed in a gleaming sleeve of black metal, the joints articulated somehow. John heard four shots in very fast succession and saw the creature jerk backwards, holes appearing in the grey skin of its face, sprays of blood and brain and bone exploding from the back of its head.

A thin bubbling shriek came from the other side of the car, and he lifted his head, fighting against the roiling surge of nausea that the movement brought.

Another man was standing there, one booted foot pressed against the other creature's throat. He held a bulbous, short-barrelled brass gun and fired three times into the head of the creature. John belatedly realised it was some kind of shotgun, the pellets had little chance to spread at such close range and they ripped the creature's head to shreds.

"Dad?" Dean's voice was very small in the back seat, and John pushed himself higher, looking at him. He was holding Sammy tightly, both of them pressed against the back of the seat and staring at him, their expressions frightened and bewildered.

"It's okay, I think," John said, lifting his hand and wiping ineffectually at the stinking liquid that covered him. His stomach heaved again, and he wondered if he was concussed by the blows he'd taken. Through the rear window he could see headlights, four of them, shining in powerfully. He could hear the throb of a powerful engine … an engine that wasn't steam-driven, he recognised. That was, like his, running on something else.

"You alright?" The man with the black armoured arm leaned in through the open driver's door. In the light, with time to think, John saw that the man was around his age, black hair brushed back from a clear-skinned narrow face, black brows over dark brown eyes, a clipped black beard framing the mouth. He wore a black suit, a leather-and-iron chestplate over it, the supports for the mechanised arm strapped across his chest and a multi-plated pauldron strapped over his right shoulder. Just visible behind the chestplate, he saw the white collar under the black shirt and stared at it uncomprehendingly.

"You alright?" The man repeated, crouching slightly to look over the seat at the children. "You hurt? Are the children hurt?"

"Yeah – uh, no," John answered slowly, his thoughts reeling. A priest? "Yeah, we're okay, I think."

"Back of your head's bleeding," the priest said shortly, straightening up to look over the roof. "Abely, get the medical kit."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

* * *

><p>John turned to watch the man on the other side of the car walk back to the vehicle in the doorway. A little older, maybe, the receding blond hair was cut very short, almost a military cut. He had a square face, with high cheekbones and bright blue eyes. He was armoured, like the priest, chest plate and pauldrons and vambrace protecting his shoulders and forearms, grieves strapped around the leather pants on his legs. The outlandish shotgun was holstered again in a harness that was supported over his shoulders and around his waist. Looking more closely, John could see a number of other weapons held by it as well.<p>

"Who are you?" he asked the priest as he moved across the seat to the door.

"Ah, well, that's a long story," the priest said, stepping back as he got out. "What are you doing here? Don't you know you can't stop on the roads between the towns?"

John shook his head. "I ran out of fuel."

"What?" The priest seemed to see the car for the first time. "You running this on alcohol?"

"Yeah," John said, glancing at the doorway. "Like yours."

The priest smiled suddenly, a one-sided grin that crinkled up his dark eyes. "Then you're in luck."

John exhaled gustily. "In more ways than one." He looked down at the bodies on the ground. "What are they?"

"Ghouls," the other man answered as he walked over to the priest and handed him a big wooden case. The priest set it on the ground and gestured to John.

"Ghouls?" John repeated doubtfully, sitting on the running board and wincing as the priest's fingers moved over the back of his skull.

"Haven't been out of a city, have you?" The blond man picked up the feet of the nearest body and dragged it away, out of the barn.

John heard the priest's soft chuckle behind him. "Don't mind Abely," he said, turning to the case. "Tip your head forward, I need to clean this out."

Leaning forward, John watched the priest open the medical kit and pull out a large glass bottle and a smaller one.

"What the hell were you doing out here, with not enough juice and two small children?"

John sighed. "That's a long story too."

"None of this country is safe to stay in," the priest said, sponging away the blood from the back of John's head. "Hasn't been safe in decades. Even if you keep moving it's not safe unless you can move fast."

"Is that why you converted your vehicles?"

"Partly," he agreed. "Partly because it's more efficient and doesn't take as much room as a steam-engine."

"Yeah." John felt the bite of alcohol against the open wound and clenched his teeth. The priest mopped up the excess liquid and looked carefully at the split.

"Didn't crack it," he said, sitting back.

"I was given the name of a man who might be able to help me," John said, turning around. "He lives in Blue Earth."

"Does he now?" The priest looked at him. "I'm based in Blue Earth and I'll wager I know every man there. What's the name?"

"Jim Murphy."

The priest smiled, his head inclining to one side. "It would seem your luck is running high. You've found him," he said. "I'm Jim Murphy."

John's gaze dropped to the collar under the armour, one brow lifting slightly. "You are."

"Don't let the trappings fool you," Murphy said, getting to his feet. "I'm doing God's work alright but these days that requires a little more than preaching to the masses."

John stood up. "Missouri Mosely sent me. She said you could tell me about …"

He trailed off, not sure how to say it. What to say. The priest looked at him and let out a deep exhale.

"About evil, son?" he asked, his voice low. "About the evil that stalks the world in the night?

Ducking his head self-consciously, John nodded. It was a dramatic word, maybe even a melodramatic one. He'd thought there was nothing more evil than what men did to each other, before it'd walked into his home.

"Missouri sent you," Jim repeated thoughtfully, sending a glance at the other man as he dragged the third body out.

"Least she's still alive," Abely grunted as he dumped the body and walked back inside. "What's your name, mister?"

"John Winchester," John said, holding out his hand.

"Abely Thompson," the man said as he took it, his grip like aged oak. "What happened?"

John looked uncomfortably around the barn. He'd told the story before, he would tell it again, he knew. But not here. Not now. Jim saw his unease and nodded sharply, getting to his feet.

"We'll fill you up, you follow us back to Blue Earth and get those children somewhere safe and warm for the night," he said decisively. "Then we'll talk."

"How big's your tank?" Abely asked, glancing at the car.

"Forty gallons," John said. "I didn't realise that there wouldn't be towns closer to each other."

"Live and learn," Jim said with a rueful smile. "At least you have the chance to do both. We're set up for longer distances."

He looked appreciatively at the sleek car and back at John. "You built this?"

John nodded tiredly. The hangover of the adrenalin was seeping through him, his head throbbing and his body aching.

"You must be a good mechanic," Jim commented. "That's something we can always use." He looked back at the car as Abely returned with a twenty-gallon drum hoisted onto one broad shoulder a few minutes later. "It won't take a lot to modify this."

At the rear of the car, Abely set the drum on the ground and pulled a coiled rubber hose from his belt, sucking the fuel through it then feeding it into the fuel tank opening.

"If Missouri sent you, John, I already know you're in deep trouble of some kind," Jim said quietly to him as they packed up the stove and pots and put out the fire.

"It's a demon," John told him softly, glancing back at the car. "I don't know why, but it attacked my family and it – it knows about us, somehow. It knows about my boys."

Jim nodded, his face drawn. "We've got a secure place, a protected place."

* * *

><p>To the east, the sky lightened gradually, more and more of the countryside becoming visible to either side of the barely-there dirt road. John followed Jim and Abely's vehicle, keeping close, grimacing a little as the car rocked and lurched over the rough ground.<p>

They slowed down and bumped over a railway crossing, and John looked around curiously as the road led them into and through a small, tightly packed village, both vehicles slowing to a crawl as they negotiated the crooked streets. Houses had been built side by side with businesses, two or three storeys, not always straight, many of them leaning against each other in search of support. Their narrow facades butted straight onto raised wooden sidewalks, lifted above the mud and manure that caked the road.

It looked more like a European village, he thought in surprise, than an American town. At the end of the winding main street, there was a crossroad, one arm curving to the left and leading to patchwork fields of farmland, the other arm jutting to the right and bordering a thick, old wood. In between the two, a church stood in a walled garden, with a tall, narrow house behind it, and a short distance beyond that they turned into a long, winding drive, bumping over something in the gate-way. Mature trees crowded about an expanse of wild-looking lawn and gardens, overgrown and dense even with the season, and the trees and gardens surrounded a tall, three-storey Victorian frame-and-weatherboard-clad house, the paint peeling and a few tiles missing from the steep, gabled roof, an octagonal tower rising on one corner with a polished metal cupola that shone in the dawn light.

Jim pulled the modified Studebaker over in front of the front porch and John stopped the car behind him, hearing birdsong and the soft whispering of the breeze in the bare tree-tops as the engines were silenced. He twisted around, looking in the back seat. Dean and Sam were still asleep, faces smooth and round and innocently peaceful.

The front door opened as he got out of the car, and he looked up, seeing a tall woman walking down the steps. Blonde curls had been swept up on top of her head, but escaped randomly to frame her face. Her long dress was old-fashioned, a dark, emerald-green silk, with layers of skirts, cinched tightly around her waist by a black leather corset. The tight corset had been reinforced with brass sheet metal, over the ribs and the back, the light armour in sharp contrast to the froth of lace spilled over it from the low-cut neck of the dress' bodice but both drawing attention to the creamy swell of her bosom. A thin ribbon of dark-green silk encircled her throat, a large jewelled brooch pinned in the centre.

Following the loud clunk-clunk of the Studebaker's doors opening and closing, Abely walked to the bottom of the steps and took her in his arms with a graceful flourish, kissing her soundly before he turned back to them. The woman laughed throatily, her hand fluttering over her chest as a flush of crimson rose up and filled her pale skin.

"John Winchester, this is Millie Crawford, the heart of my home," Abely said with a wide grin.

"A pleasure to meet you, John," Millie said, stepping off the porch and offering her hands to him. Her voice was warm and rich, almost contralto, he thought as he took her hands. Closer, he could see her eyes were a dark blue, almost midnight, and a light spray of freckles were scattered over her nose and cheeks.

"The pleasure is mine," he managed to say, her perfume as intoxicating as her appearance and both reminding him that he was long out of practice interacting with beautiful women.

"Oh, and a charmer," Millie smiled at him, and turned to Jim, hugging the priest then stepping back. "I'm glad you made it back in one piece."

"When do we not?" Jim asked her lightly.

"John and his boys'll be staying with us for awhile," Abely added to her, sliding an arm around her waist.

She nodded as John walked back to the car. "Plenty of room, the bedrooms on the third floor are ready for guests," she said, looking from Abely to Jim. "And it's breakfast you're expecting, I've no doubt."

"Breakfast sounds like a wonderful plan. It was a long night," Jim said with a smile. "Takes a lot of food to keep us going on the hunt."

She laughed and picked up her skirts, heading back up the stairs. "Wash up first, and don't forget to wipe your feet," she said over her shoulder.

"Ah, the woman's touch," Jim said on a small exhale. "Well, let's get the gear inside."

Waking Dean gently, John glanced up as the two men pulled out bulging bags of armour and weapons from their vehicle, carrying them up the steps and into the house. What they did, he thought, seemed to be regarded as quite normal here.

John followed them up the steps and into the house, Dean walking unsteadily beside him as he carried Sammy. Unkempt it might've been on the outside, but the interior was a vision of ordered chaos that he'd never imagined was possible.

Every wall held books, stacked on shelves, on tables, on sideboards and chiffoniers and dressers, and in teetering piles on the floor in between the furniture, necessitating care with negotiating the path through the house. He felt Dean's fingers tighten in astonishment on his, a glance down showing his son's mouth and eyes wide open at the sight, the little boy's exhaustion disappeared.

Along the broad hallway, mounds and baskets and boxes and crates were stacked here and there, filled with all kinds of metal gadgets and pieces and machined parts, gears and springs and coils and nuts and bolts and delicately wrought pieces of brass and gold and iron. Competing for the space, indoor plants of great size and health sent tendrils waving in the air for new territory to conquer, fronds and vines reaching up the walls and winding themselves through the banisters of the steep staircase that led to the upper storeys.

John crabbed sideways down between the obstacles in the hall, following the priest and hunter as they passed through a door at the end and entered a large, square room at the back of the house. It was filled with a wash of pale gold, the early morning sunlight pouring through large windows in two walls, warming the cream walls and wooden cabinetry. In the centre, a scrubbed pine table took up most of the space, surrounded by mismatched chairs at one end. At the other, a thick butcher's block and marble and glass pastry boards took up nearly a third of the table's length. A huge cream range filled a nook on one side of the open hearth, and already the room was redolent with the scents of cooking food – real food, he realised as his mouth filled with saliva in anticipation. Faint but pervasive, under the smell of the food, he breathed in unfamiliar odours, his gaze moving around the room and seeing the bunches of herbs and flowers, roots and branches, hanging here and there around the room from the open beams and drying in the warm air.

"Sit down, there's fresh milk in the jug, Bailey came up early this morning," Millie said, her back to them as she turned hotcakes on the stove. "Fresh butter as well. The loaves are still cooling but help yourselves."

Abely walked to the windowsill and took one of the hot loaves of bread from it, tossing it from hand to hand as he returned to the table and dropped into onto a wooden board in the centre. A gallon jug of primrose-coloured milk sat next to the board, and a deep dish of golden butter had been set on the other side.

Bringing a plate full of hotcakes to the table, Millie set them down and looked at John, who was balancing the baby on his knee as he tried to butter a slice of bread.

"Abely, there's a high-chair in the basement, be a love and bring it up for poor John, so he can eat his breakfast without having to hold onto the bairn," she said to her partner, reaching out for Sammy as John looked up at her. "Give him to me and get your plates filled."

To John's surprise, Sammy didn't even blink as he was lifted in the woman's arms and tucked against her. He stared trustfully into Millie's face, smiling gummily at her when her mouth twitched into a smile.

"Aren't you going to be the handsome one," she said softly, and the baby's smile widened. "And tall," she added, taking one of Sammy's hands in her fingertips. "Got your da's big hands, haven't you?"

"Here," Abely said, setting the chair at the table next to John.

Millie eased the baby into the chair and set the lid down, and Sammy sat very upright, staring imperiously around the room from his elevated position. John grinned at him as Millie poured milk into a small bowl of porridge, tasting the heat against her lip before she offered him a spoonful of creamy cereal.

* * *

><p>John looked around the bedroom carefully as he drew the thick curtains closed over the window. It was a big one, clean and remarkably austere considering the clutter of every other room in the house he'd seen. It was very quiet, the walls thick and solid, and Dean climbed into the single bed reluctantly, watching his father check that Sammy was comfortable and beginning to fall asleep.<p>

"It's daytime," he protested softly, pulling a bright silk patchwork quilt over himself.

"And you two only got about an hour's sleep last night," John said in an equally quiet voice, kneeling beside his son's bed. "Just a catch up, okay? You can explore this afternoon."

Dean's bottom lip pushed out mulishly. "Promise?"

"I promise," John said, repressing a smile. "We're going to stay here for a little while, Dean, and Pastor Jim said that the school is a good one. You'll have a chance to get know to this place."

The little boy's eyelashes fluttered down against his cheeks. Protest or not, what they'd been through the previous night and the sensation of a stomach full of good, warm food, and he'd be asleep in no time, John thought, tucking the covers closely around him. He leaned forward and brushed a light kiss on Dean's forehead, then straightened up, backing away from the beds.

He wasn't yet sure if they would stay or not. A lot depended on what the two men downstairs had to tell him. But he couldn't keep drifting around, not with what Jim said was out there, not with the boys with him. So one way or another, he thought they'd stick around for a while, if not in this house, then perhaps he would be able to rent another. He could, he thought, take heart from what the priest had said about mechanics.

Closing the door softly behind him, he turned away and walked back to the stairs.

* * *

><p>Abely's study was a long, narrow room on the western side of the house, a room filled to capacity with books and inventions, with metal-works and whittled wood carvings, bones and feathers, biological experiments and glass jars filled with specimens of both the natural and unnatural world. A long, whirled ivory horn hung from one wall, and a boiled white skull of some creature both large and fearsome hung on another. The desk was covered with fragments of differently tinted pieces of mirror and glass, stones both polished and rough, a set of fine brass scales and a complicated-looking microscope, and scattered over with dozens of piles of sheet paper, all covered in the same fine hand, the blue inked letters cramped and tiny and the writing filling the pages from top to bottom and side to side.<p>

"The question is, what would a demon want with a human family?" Jim said, fishing a snake spine from the back of the chair he was sitting in and draping it over the arm, shifting back more comfortably. "Demons do not plan, they do not conspire. Their purpose is chaos and pain to drink, torture for the amusement and sustenance it gives them."

Sitting in the big leather chair behind the desk, Abely shrugged. "Perhaps Mary made a deal, in '72 or '73 when Emerson said the demon came out. John here's got missing time in '73, he says."

John stared at him. "What does that mean, made a deal?"

"If Mary was raised a hunter, which is possible but not confirmed," Jim interceded gently. "It's unlikely she would've risked her soul by making a deal."

"What?" John looked at him.

"Demons can be summoned, to make deals at the crossroads. They'll give your heart's desire but it costs your soul," Abely told him, gesturing vaguely around the room and turning to look back at the priest. "But Jim, that's the lowest level practically and they can't get out of Hell on their own. They sure as mutton can't go wandering around the country if they've been summoned to a crossroads."

"No." Jim stared into the glass he held absently. "No, you're right. They can't." He looked up. "But deals are made with demons who are more powerful than the crossroads hellspawn."

"No one's heard of a deal like that for a thousand years," Abely pointed out.

"No one's heard of a full-blood demon on this plane for longer than that," Jim said, setting his glass down and rubbed a hand over his face. "Yet Emerson and Mina told him one is rumoured to have been seen here."

"The Order doesn't –"

"No," Jim cut the hunter off. "No, the Order doesn't. But John here saw a man whose eyes turned yellow. Who disappeared in front of him."

"Could've been a rakshasa," Abely said, his expression tightening stubbornly.

Jim smiled. "It could've been, but neither of us think it was, do we?"

Watching and listening to the byplay between the two men, John realised he couldn't keep up, he didn't understand what they were even talking about.

"Stop," he said. "I don't – this is – I don't understand what the hell is going on. That man – or demon – or whatever the hell it was told me it had met my family, my wife and my boys. What it did mean by that?"

Abely's gaze dropped to his glass and Jim sighed. "We don't know, John. I know how unsatisfactory that is, but without more information, it's too dangerous to simply guess at these things."

"What can I do?"

"At this moment? Nothing. Get some rest. Tomorrow we'll get Gil over here," Jim said, picking up his glass and staring at the fire. "He can test both children for any signs of demonic touch or contamination."

Abely looked at John. "John, whether it's bad luck or something worse, you're in it now." He glanced at Jim who shrugged unhappily. "What you will have to do, what you must do, is learn about these things, learn how to protect yourself, and your boys, learn to do what we do."

John licked his lips, looking at the floor. "Alright. But – where the hell do I start? I should've stayed at the bookstore, should've –"

Jim downed the whiskey in his glass, shaking his head.

"If it was a demon, it knew you'd been there, John. Knew you'd looked for someone to help you. Returning isn't going to be a smart move, not yet. You are going to start here," he said, looking at the books that filled the room. "We're not a part of the Order, but we've stayed alive through dark days. And we are not going to let you go out there unprotected, unknowing, again."

* * *

><p>John walked through the garden, finding the bench hidden behind a wall of rhododendrons and sinking down on it. Everything he'd ever known, had ever believed, was wrong, he thought incredulously. And everything he would have to learn, would have to come to terms with … it was like looking up at Everest. He didn't think he could do it.<p>

The afternoon sunshine was warming and in the bower of the vegetation around him, it was still and, he thought, after a lifetime lived in the near-constant hum of a city, even a small one, it was preternaturally quiet. He leaned back against the seat, closing his eyes and trying to review and put into some kind of framework what had happened, what he'd learned and how it was really going to affect him. And his sons.

Monsters. And demons. And ghosts and witches and who knew what else. All of it fairy tales he barely remembered from his childhood. All of it real as the grass under his feet and the sunlight on his back.

He'd done two tours in the militia, had fought for three years in the Border Wars, killing under orders and watching his men die under orders. Despite the fantastic nature of the enemies he now faced, he understood weapons and strategy. Abely had put the battles he and Jim fought every day into those terms, soldiers against nightfall, and he knew he could do that part of it. Could handle it.

The knowledge he would need … that was different. Everything had its own laws, Jim had told him. Patterns of behaviour. Strengths. Weaknesses. For most of the creatures that lived in the shadow-world, one or more of the pure elements would weaken or kill them. Few knew why or how.

A rustle in the grass broke through his thoughts and he looked up as Millie walked over and sat down beside him. For a moment, they sat in silence, looking at the bare shapes in the winter garden.

"It's hard to get your head around," she said, her gaze remaining on the leafless trees. "I know. I grew up in Lincoln, quite an ordinary life really."

She turned to him, pushing down the rucked and lace sleeve of her dress until her shoulder was bared. Deep white scars marred the smooth skin, a semi-circular series of punctures. John stared at them.

"Skin-walker," she said, pulling the sleeve up. "Killed my family, tore out their throats in front of me, and turned my brother."

"Abely was in town after it at the time. He killed it and he gave my brother and I the anti-dote to the poison held in its bite. I survived. Jeremy didn't. No one knew why, exactly. Gil's been working on the venoms and poisons and diseases of the monsters for years now and he's still not sure of the exact process."

John looked at her and she smiled slightly at him. "It's all real, John. As real as the good things of this world. More real, perhaps since they're usually fleeting. And once you've seen, once they've come after you, you can't go back to not knowing."

She stood up, smoothing down her skirts and looking down at him. "These people, they're good. They are willing to sacrifice themselves to save others. They can help you, and your boys, they can keep you safe. If you let them."

He nodded and she turned away, walking through the shrubs and trees back to the house.

He knew she was right. There was no going back.

Here, he would learn, all that he could about the shadows and the monsters and the hunt. Here, his sons would be safe and would learn everything he did, learn it young so that they would be prepared for whatever came out of the dark for them. Here, they would embark on a new path and he would find the leads and the weaknesses of the demon and he would kill it for what it done to him.

* * *

><p>END of <em>A Demon's Dreaming<em>.

**A/N:** Part 1 of this series is continued in _Salt & Leather, Iron & Lace_.


End file.
